When Life Give's You Lemons...Just Roll With It!

What a great weekend it was!  We had a wonderful turnout for the silent auction, the joyride was a blast, and fun was had at the concert.  We woke up this morning (Sunday, September 11^th) and began to prepare all of our gear.  Earlier this week we were informed that our front panniers (the bags that go on the front wheel to carry our stuff) were on back order and would not arrive until Wednesday.  So our plan was to pack everything in the rear panniers and in our packs that would rest on the back racks.  

Long story short, that put about 60 pounds of gear high on the rear rack of the bikes.  We took off and it immediately felt extremely unstable, we had to use a lot of arm and core strength just to stabilize the bikes, because they were so top heavy.  This is when we began to doubt this being a good idea.  The first test came when we hit a stoplight going uphill.  (This is not always easy on a traditional bike, let alone a loaded tour bike)  It was ridiculously hard to get our momentum moving forward without falling over, and once we did get moving it was still hard to clip into the pedal. This was extremely unsafe and we decided to hold off departing on the trip until we receive the front panniers.  (This was an extremely hard decision as we are both stubborn and really wanted to hit the road)  But, our safety is the most important and this did not at all seem safe. 

Upon further reflection we have decided this was a blessing in disguise.  We now have three additional days to prepare for the trip.  We can better prepare the website for you to follow us, we can gain a better understanding of the technology we shall be using, and we can do some more overall planning.  It was hard but to come to this decision, however this will pay off long term and help us set a precedent for this trip of safety first.  We will be putting ourselves in a lot of precarious situations during this trip, however it will be important to consider our safety first.  Whether it be riding in icy conditions or climbing in poor weather, we must keep our egos at bay.

Ah well, we'll be on the road soon enough!

Now, as for what you can expect from us while we are on the road.  We hope to blog three times a week and keep them short.  Sometimes I (Brent) can get a bit wordy and have some rather lengthy posts, but I have set a goal to keep all posts around 500 word.  We will be using Facebook and Twitter daily, so stay tuned to those for daily updates.  Over the next few days we will be posting up a tentative route for the first couple months as well as an inside look at the rigs we’ll be riding for the next year in a half. 

In good health,

Brent and Michael